New clerics announced for Bolton Abbey and Kirkby Malham

Canon Simon Cowling will be the new rector of Bolton Abbey and the Rev Michael Jackson will take charge at Kirkby Malham.

Simon is currently Precentor of Sheffield Cathedral and chaplain to the Master Cutler.

He grew up in Huddersfield before studying classics at Cambridge University. and teaching Latin and Greek at Freman College in Hertfordshire.

He then obtained a degree from Lincoln Theological College and spent 11 years as vicar of Roundhay St Edmund in Leeds.

Married with three adult children, he will be instituted at Bolton Priory on Sunday, September 22 at 3pm. And the new Kirkby Malham vicar is currently assistant priest in a four parish benefice near Winchester and, for 26 years, has been a director of St John's Winchester Charity which provides sheltered housing and nursing care for older people in Winchester.

Michael said: “I’ve been touched by the warmth of those whom I’ve already met in the parish and diocese. It will be a privilege to become part of the community.”

His wife, Diana, is a senior research fellow at The Cicely Saunders Institute at Kings College Hospital, London and the couple have three married children Kate, Alice and James, four grandsons and two grandchildren whose births are imminent!